Understanding Friedrich Dürrenmatt

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Last edited by MARC Bot
July 13, 2024 | History

Understanding Friedrich Dürrenmatt

  • 0 Ratings
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This introductory volume explores the playwright's chaotic universe, where God has retreated beyond the stars and where blind chance is the real prime mover, justice is corruptible, ideologies useless, and tragedy no longer possible. Yet despite the overriding pessimism of Durrenmatt's Weltanschauung, the author argues that the playwright remains a genial master of comedy.

Through the laughter he allows his readers to see that all is not lost, that there are virtues worth fighting for, and that there are still courageous Don Quixotes worthy of the title "hero.".

Crockett contends that as a theorist of the modern German stage, Durrenmatt challenges Bertolt Brecht and offers alternatives. As a craftsman of prose fiction, he fashions the stout thread with which the readers enter his labyrinths and eventually find their way back out, while his literary Theseuses, clinging to gossamer strands, sometimes fall prey to the monster in the maze.

Publish Date
Language
English
Pages
220

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Previews available in: English

Edition Availability
Cover of: Understanding Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Understanding Friedrich Dürrenmatt
1998, University of South Carolina Press
in English

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Book Details


Table of Contents

Biography
Earliest prose and dramatic works
The turn to comedy
Three detective stories
Two plays about ideologies and God's remoteness
The radio plays
Consolation from Dürrenmatt
The corruption of justice
Of heroism, failure, and resignation
Improbable grace
The adaptations
Four that failed: the late plays
The prose of the 1970s and 1980s
Conclusion.

Edition Notes

Includes bibliographical references (p. 204-214) and index.

Published in
Columbia
Series
Understanding modern European and Latin American literature

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
832/.914
Library of Congress
PT2607.U493 Z59 1998, PT2607.U493Z59 1997, PT2607.U493 Z59 1998eb, PT2607.U493 Z59 1997

The Physical Object

Pagination
xxi, 220 p. ;
Number of pages
220

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL686954M
Internet Archive
understandingfri00croc
ISBN 10
1570032130
LCCN
97033889
OCLC/WorldCat
45885716, 37725459
Goodreads
148555

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July 13, 2024 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
January 7, 2023 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
December 29, 2021 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
May 27, 2021 Edited by Gustav-Landauer-Bibliothek Witten person
December 10, 2009 Created by WorkBot add works page